Naina and Sam part- 1
The greatest religion that is above all religions is humanity. I am saying this out of a personal discovery. I am sure that many philosophers and spiritual leaders must have said this already, many times in history. But for me, it’s a revelation.
We recently got over with Diwali and during the pooja and other religious formalities, I realized that it was proving to be extremely hard for me to sit through the chanting and the rituals. I realized that even though all my life I have been a Hindu, I have never actually believed very strongly in my religion. The credit for this neutrality, also goes to my parents, who brought be up in a practicality driven environment where religion occupied a very small space. I do not know the mythological stories right, do not know who was whose brother or son or which god is attributed to which miracle. I cannot recite a single aarti without reading from a booklet.
This however, does not mean that I am an atheist. I believe in god. I fear god. But it is genderless faceless and story less. My god is nothing but a power, a strength reservoir where I need to dive deep when I am in emotional distress or worry for the future.
So now I am going to type, for myself to remember this phase in my life, a sweet story that I hope ends sweetly too.
I am a dog lover. I always was. When I was a kid, I used to pick up stray pups from parks and bring them home and beg my mum to let me keep it. Most of times, Ma would sternly deny and I could be seen holding that pup, loaded with a heavily morose expression, walking towards the same park where I found him. In the coming years, I tried tears, threats, silence to have my parents agree, but Ma was always sitting on a big NO. I had asthma and when there are introduced, medical concerns of any kind, no parent would consider even registering such a request.
Till 27, my craving for a dog was unmet, uncared for. One fine day, after a major fiasco at work with a coworker, I went to a park near my place in South Delhi. Me and my partner are not the park going types but this time we thought it would be nice break. There I found this adorable plump pup which came running to me as if saying, " Hey, here I am, was looking for you all this while!". My heart overpowered my brain and also my partner and we both carried him from there, on a bike, to my mother's place, some 30 kms away. My mom's first reaction was "God, he's so cute." immediately followed by a brain centered output of ,"Why did you bring him?"
The pup who was behaving in a shy timid manner earlier, suddenly started to run around, jumped on Ma's lap and placed himself there as the rightful heir. My mum had no clue how to raise him. Neither did I. We struggled and learnt how not to sleep at nights, how not to surrender to the tiny tail wagging at 3 am and what not. He is almost around a year old now and has become the centre of our universe, especially my mother's. His name is Sam.
Sam is a pampered kid of the house. I have more pictures of him in my computer than any one else I love. He looks at me questioningly, from the wallpaper, every time I use my phone. He is in short our baby, our son and no one is allowed to call him a dog. This bit of the story is very similar to many middle class households. We love our dogs with as much or probably more passion than we love our children. We do not have servants for the dog to spend all the time with. We do not chain our dogs in the parking area as we do not own mansions. In short, we make the most of the love the dog showers us with and we give him a very large potion of our hearts.
I restate - he is our son with four legs instead of two and an extra tail.
We recently got over with Diwali and during the pooja and other religious formalities, I realized that it was proving to be extremely hard for me to sit through the chanting and the rituals. I realized that even though all my life I have been a Hindu, I have never actually believed very strongly in my religion. The credit for this neutrality, also goes to my parents, who brought be up in a practicality driven environment where religion occupied a very small space. I do not know the mythological stories right, do not know who was whose brother or son or which god is attributed to which miracle. I cannot recite a single aarti without reading from a booklet.
This however, does not mean that I am an atheist. I believe in god. I fear god. But it is genderless faceless and story less. My god is nothing but a power, a strength reservoir where I need to dive deep when I am in emotional distress or worry for the future.
So now I am going to type, for myself to remember this phase in my life, a sweet story that I hope ends sweetly too.
I am a dog lover. I always was. When I was a kid, I used to pick up stray pups from parks and bring them home and beg my mum to let me keep it. Most of times, Ma would sternly deny and I could be seen holding that pup, loaded with a heavily morose expression, walking towards the same park where I found him. In the coming years, I tried tears, threats, silence to have my parents agree, but Ma was always sitting on a big NO. I had asthma and when there are introduced, medical concerns of any kind, no parent would consider even registering such a request.
Till 27, my craving for a dog was unmet, uncared for. One fine day, after a major fiasco at work with a coworker, I went to a park near my place in South Delhi. Me and my partner are not the park going types but this time we thought it would be nice break. There I found this adorable plump pup which came running to me as if saying, " Hey, here I am, was looking for you all this while!". My heart overpowered my brain and also my partner and we both carried him from there, on a bike, to my mother's place, some 30 kms away. My mom's first reaction was "God, he's so cute." immediately followed by a brain centered output of ,"Why did you bring him?"
The pup who was behaving in a shy timid manner earlier, suddenly started to run around, jumped on Ma's lap and placed himself there as the rightful heir. My mum had no clue how to raise him. Neither did I. We struggled and learnt how not to sleep at nights, how not to surrender to the tiny tail wagging at 3 am and what not. He is almost around a year old now and has become the centre of our universe, especially my mother's. His name is Sam.
Sam is a pampered kid of the house. I have more pictures of him in my computer than any one else I love. He looks at me questioningly, from the wallpaper, every time I use my phone. He is in short our baby, our son and no one is allowed to call him a dog. This bit of the story is very similar to many middle class households. We love our dogs with as much or probably more passion than we love our children. We do not have servants for the dog to spend all the time with. We do not chain our dogs in the parking area as we do not own mansions. In short, we make the most of the love the dog showers us with and we give him a very large potion of our hearts.
I restate - he is our son with four legs instead of two and an extra tail.
Labels: dog lover
posted by wandereress at 7:05 PM
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